What Lies Beneath
by Alodia
Summary: Alothias is a somewhat young Elf who experiences a past tragedy. But when a terrifing, almost unreal secret is revealed, she is about to haunt her present. NOT A MARYSUE! LOTS OF ACTION in later chapters. PLZ R/R!!!


I have already written this story, but now I am starting over. It will have the same plot, but this was my first story posted and it was written somewhat.. A maturely. Yeah, well, I hope you enjoy the updated version! And remember-REVIEW TO THE EXTREME!!!!!  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
***Chapter One-What Lies Beneath***  
  
*Alothias, a young elf with rich mahogany hair and a somewhat shapely figure with lustrous green eyes, used them to be silent and stare out at the scene, which lay before her. Rairon, her older brother, fought trying to save her and her sister from orcs, as her father had tried. Her father and mother already lay dead and murdered, sprawled out on the ground nearby. What a fight it had been, when the orcs had first come. Her father had leaped to the rescue, only to be the first slaughtered. Her brother had fought on, when her mother, blocking her sister and herself, was also murdered. Now her younger sister, Emli, cowered in the few folds of Alothias's emerald dress. What had befallen such a wonderful family as hers?*  
  
Alothias awoke with a start drenched in her own sweat, her nightmare still fresh within her mind. She whipped her head around, surveying the room with growing anxiousness. Everything seemed in its place--for the time being. Beside her she saw that Emli had snuck under the covers to sleep with her, fearing the dark. She gazed upon the fair-skinned, peaceful face and listened to her soft night breathing. Alothias pulled the blankets up to cover the thin body, and pushed her sister's thick dark curls from her face.  
  
'She probably had another nightmare as well,' thought Alothias, regretfully. She shuddered, not with cold, but with fear. The dream she had already had many times before, but never this vivid. Alothias wrapped her arm around her younger sister and sighed. It had been 200 years since the attack, why couldn't she just get these images out of her head, at least all of the details?  
  
Suddenly Alothias heard a creak in the floorboards of the room. With quick reflexes, she jumped out of bed and grabbed a knife on her bedside table, pressing the cold blade to the throat of the cloaked figure, which had crept up behind her bed in the shadows.  
  
"Who are you?" she demanded harshly, angry that he had snuck up without her knowing. Actually, she was a tad more frightened than upset. The figure then pulled back their hood to reveal an Elfish messenger.  
  
"Lady Alothias, I am sorry to have disturbed you, but I have received urgent news of Rairon Greenleaf." Alothias gasped, short of breath suddenly, and nearly fainted. Rairon, her older brother, Rairon? She couldn't take the idea of him being alive, when she knew he had been captured by the orcs and should be dead. The torture he must have received, the agony he must have experienced, the terror..  
  
"R-Rairon?" she stammered, beginning to twine her fingers through her blonde locks, and Elf nodded gravely. Alothias gazed back over at her sister who had woken up and heard everything after Rairon. Her hazel eyes, too, were wide in fear and astonishment. Alothias dismissed the messenger with a flick of her graceful hand. She had some thinking to do.  
  
"Alothias, is Rairon alive?" asked the 207-year-old Emli in bewilderment. Alothias shook her head grimly. She could not yet speak of her long lost sibling, especially to one who had barely known him.  
  
"I don't know." With that Alothias tucked Emli in snugly, and watched as she fell into another peaceful slumber. Oh, how she longed to be home again, the one she knew from long ago. Her grandfather had come to her after the death of her family, trying to comfort and sooth. He had done nothing.  
  
If only her father had been the first-born child, the heir to Legolas, her grandfather's, throne. If only he had been, they would have still lived at the castle, and therefore been surrounded with an army. But when her father Daunthor had known he was third in line, he had chosen a normal Elvin life with her mother. A lot of good that did them.  
  
But Alothias was sure her parents did not regret what they had chosen. They had lived well, full fitting lives up to that point. Their only sorrow would probably be that they were no longer allowed to be with Emli, at such a young, vulnerable age.  
  
The only things Alothias could remember engaging with her father was training, and not much at that. Rairon had mostly taught her things, her father only archery. He had inherited his father's gene in that he was most excellent in that. Rairon was more so skilled with a sword.  
  
Now a days, she tried to teach Emli how to fight, as best as she could manage with so little training herself, and she had soon discovered Emli to have that special archery skill.  
  
Now Alothias strolled quietly over to the cabinet at the far end of the wall and opened the two doors outward. They revealed all of the weapons that Alothias owned, and her favorite was her short sword Lalathawine. It had been her mother's.  
  
So now she was nearly satisfied-she had a bit of memories left with her parents other than their painful deaths. Hope still glimmered, though dull, in her heart.  
  
But now Alothias would be forced to tend to the matter of Rairon. Of course she should see him-shouldn't she? After all, he *was* her brother! How could she even think of such a thing as not to? It was the most idiotic thing she had ever even imagined.  
  
Or was it?  
  
Confused thoughts twisted themselves in her mind, wavering depiction from reality and only imagination. Alothias ran her fingers through her slick hair, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. What would she even say to Rairon?  
  
Well, this is what must lie beneath the truth and reality-the terror of the unknown.  
  
A soft whimper drew the attention of Alothias back towards her bed, and she twirled around to see Emli beginning to shrink fearfully underneath of the blankets.  
  
"Alothias, I'm tired. Could you please come sleep with me?" She plastered a fake cheerful smile on her full red lips and approached her.  
  
"Of course," she answered in a whisper, kissing the top of her sister's forehead. "Quel kaima, poikaersleep well pure one." Emli's eyes slowly drooped before she again slept as Alothias stroked her hair endearingly. This is what lied beneath it all. 


End file.
